I know some fund / firms the PM is also the research analyst too, usually the quant shops. some firms i’ve noticed research analyst at more growth oriented firms/funds have been in their roles for 15+ years.
I was at a conference once and any type of questions related to a company was answered by the research analyst and the PM would also refer to the research analyst as well because the research analyst had more details on the valuation process of the company.
So if the research analyst is doing the detailed analysis on all these companies and the PM is just choosing the companies for his portfolio. It sounds like these are 2 completely different jobs?
which leads me to ask, what are the skills/experience needed to become a portfolio manager? I’m sure a lot of research analysts move into PMs but i’ve seen people right out of school go on the PM path as an associate.
If you’re not doing fundamental analysis, then you’re either doing quant work or technical analysis work (and there’s a blurry line where the two sometimes overlap). It’s generally the fundamental shops where there is a sharper distinction between the analyst role and the PM role.
In quant work, the research analyst and the PM roles blend together more, with the PM generally running the models and the researcher looking in to ways to improve it, identify risks better, and/or interacting with clients so that the PM can spend more time doing direct PM work. In technical analysis, the analysis is simpler (or at least less time consuming) than fundamental analysis, so there is more possibility for the PM to be both an analyst and handle things like position sizing, trades, etc., and in those situations, junior roles are more likely to be junior PMs than traditional securities analysts.
One should also note that sometimes junior PM roles are more about things like portfolio reporting and attribution analysis and making sure trades get executed and reconciled than being regular PM. All of this stuff is appropriate for someone who is gaining experience on how to do PM and moving up the ladder, but it is much different work than a buy-side or sell-side equity researcher, and fundamental shops will generally want all PMs to have done equity or fixed income research before moving in to a full PM role.
My understanding is that fundamental shops outnumber quant and technical shops by a large margin and so there are a lot more openings for people who do securities research than people who do technical or quant analysis.
